We will lose two-thirds of our wild animal populations by 2020 due to human impact on the Earth, new study finds

Mankind's hubris could cost the planet nearly two-thirds of its wildlife population by 2020, a staggering new report says. (Christophe Cerisier/Getty Images)

Unless humanity drastically scales back its impact on the planet, two-thirds of wild animal populations could disappear by the end of the decade, according to a foreboding new report.

The latest edition of the World Wildlife Fund's Living Planet Report is the most comprehensive analysis to date of humanity's impact on animal populations — and it paints a grim picture for the wild creatures of the world.

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"For decades scientists have been warning that human actions are pushing life toward a sixth mass extinction. Evidence in this year's Living Planet Report supports this," Marco Lambertini wrote in a foreword to the study.

Animal populations have already plummeted by 58% between 1970 and 2012 — and if mankind doesn't change its course, the drop will reach at least 70% by 2020, according to the report.

The study predicts what many environmentalists refer to as a "sixth extinction," or the disappearance of animal populations within our current geological age.

Animal populations are shrinking rapidly as humans destroy their habitats for the sake of agriculture, logging and mining, according to the study. (tostphoto/Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The Earth has transitioned into a new ecological epoch, the Anthropocene, during which climate is changing rapidly, oceans are acidifying and biomes are disappearing — "all at a rate measurable during a single human lifetime."

Wetlands, lakes and rivers are the worst hit habitats since 1970, with those areas seeing an 81% decrease in species populations, according to the report. Among the worst hit individual species are elephants, whose populations have dipped 20% in just ten years.

The rapid climate change is clearly attributable to destructive human behavior, authors of the study say.

The most common threat to wild animal populations is the "loss and degradation of habitat" caused by unsustainable agriculture, logging, mining and commercial development, the report reads.

Pollution is a major threat to animal populations. (acilo/Getty Images)

"Exceeding Earth's biocapacity to such a degree is possible only in the short term. Only for a brief period can we cut trees faster than they mature, harvest more fish than the oceans can replenish, or emit more carbon into the atmosphere than the forests and oceans can absorb," the report found.

Unsustainable poaching, pollution, invasive species and disease are other factors that have led to the sharp decline in wild animal populations.

The report, published this week, also finds that mankind has "yet to make a rational economic response" to the well-documented changes in our environment.

Humanity's attempts to scale back its footprint "do not correspond to intentional policies to human impact on nature," but rather have been the result of major economic crises, like the 1973 oil crisis.

While the report offers "a challenging picture," it says there are still grounds for optimism for the future, citing the global agreement to combat climate change at the Paris climate conference in December 2015 as one possible silver lining.